I can understand. The Miami/Dallas game would be the 3rd ranked game even to me. But Dallas & Miami are both riding 3 game winning streaks. And in the last 3 wins, the Dolphins defense has not given up a TD and Matt Moore is ranked 2nd to only Aaron Rogers in QB rating. And all 3 games are matchups between teams in Peter King's Fine 15. (That's right, even Mr Drink the Sweat of Tom Brady's nutsack has the Fins in at #15 this week.) The fans down here don't know what to do. They're excited to see some wins, but each win moves up back in the draft and away from a franchise QB. My luck, they'll go 8-8 and draft a right tackle. The local Am talkshow hosts are even saying that if they win 5 of the last 6, they'll keep Sparano and Ireland. Fuck.
I don't know how many of you caught the Miami game yesterday, but they looked...intriguing. Sure, Buffalo is a team in trouble and Miami isn't good per se, but Reggie Bush is looking like a real ball player and Moore threw 3 TDs for the second time in 3 weeks. It wouldn't surprise me to see them challenge Dallas.
These wins are going to assure them 3 years of having Matt Moore as their QB and each season going something like 6-10.
Brother vs Brother? This game is going to be epic. I have to flip that on you though. Jim has the eye of the tiger. Something about him I like. Alex Smith doesn't make big plays, but he doesn't make mistakes. Flacco makes mistakes.
Meh. They probably couldn't outsuck Indianapolis if they tried, and assuming they don't win more than 2 of their next six (probably a fair assumption, with DAL, PHI, NE, NJJ, OAK, and BUF being their remaining games), they should still be in position to draft Matt Barkley, Landry Jones, or Robert Griffin, all fine options (although people putting Griffin above Jones and Barkley confuse me).
Todd Haley and Bill Belichick are having a battle for "NFL coach most likely to be mistaken for town drunk."
Pats came out in the second half looking like a team that actually wants to be in the playoffs. The O-line looked like swiss cheese for a lot of the night, though. Also, I mean, I get it - Danny Woodhead is a scrappy guy and on a play action pass, sometimes he can get enough of a block in there to allow the pass to be completed. But when the defense is running over your O-line with impunity, that's not the time to rely on a guy that's 5'7" to stop some 6'3", 300lb. defensive back. Also, Edelman did surprisingly well as a d-back, funny to see him out there.
Fixed that for you. Couldn't agree more. I honestly think ESPN told Brady to fuck up a few just so people wouldn't tune out in the first 5 minutes and say "Fuck this, its going to be a blow out." No way that game was realistically going to be fair. The Eagles and Browns have the same amount of wins. Fun facts.
They seem to be the most likely candidates. Due to their position they probably won't need to claim him off waivers either, which means he can come in really cheap. The offense has changed since he left, but let him learn it while seeing what Hanie can do against Oakland, which is a game they might have lost anyway. Orton might not be great, but he's probably good enough to beat teams like Carolina, Minnesota, and Kansas City. If someone doesn't snag Orton off waivers while the bears wait, there's no doubt in my mind that Chicago will take him.
Well that went to shit in a hurry. The chiefs just claimed Orton off the waiver wire. I guess Palko's performance wasn't very encouraging.
These are the most flag happy refs I've ever seen. Jesus fucking Christ, let them play some football.
Suh is the most well spoken dirtiest player ever. Fuck the Lions, he needs to get suspended for at least 3 games right now and fined even more. He was slamming the guys head against the ground, then stomped him when he got up. The guy is a sociopath.
What, you don't believe him when he said that all that happened was that he lost his balance when he accidentally put his foot down on Dietrich-Smith? The guy crossed a major line, the Suh's stomp wasn't as bad as what Haynesworth did in 2006 (taking of a guys helmet and stomping on his face) but the punishment has to be somewhat similar. Haynseworth got 5 games, and I don't know if Suh should get that much, but the guy needs to get at least two weeks off just for that, never mind the whole slamming the guys head into the ground, I don't know if I've ever seen someone do something like that so blatantly before.
If I was the Lions, I would treat it like college football and suspend Suh for a game, hoping the league won't enact its banhammer with something more severe. That won't happen though. I see him getting 2 or 3 games.
It should be mentioned too that not only did that dumbass probably get himself suspended, he also gave Green Bay four extra points when Detroit was still very much in it. People who weigh over 300 pounds should not be stomping on anyone. I think two games off sounds about right since no one was seriously hurt. Great goal line stop by the 49ers there. This should be closer than the earlier game as the packers pretty much took care of business. Stafford still has much to learn.
"Crumble" seems a bit hyperbolic here. It was a 6-6 game going into the fourth quarter. They held Ray Rice to 59 yards and kept him out of the end zone. Not too shabby for an away game, on a short week, where they had to travel across the country. Would they lose to the aforementioned teams? Probably. Their secondary isn't good enough to stop the Pats, Saints and Packers air attacks. Their offensive line was pretty woeful last night. Frankly, I'm surprised Smith faired as well as he did in a game where he was sacked nine times. I still really like their defense however, and give them a good chance to go deep into the playoffs, especially if that defense can generate some turnovers. Having a -2 differential last night really put the defense at a disadvantage.
I think this would have been a different game if both teams had to travel. Not fair that one team travels on a short week, and another just waits at home.
The travel excuse has always been weak to me. It's a 3 hour flight, it's not like they're traveling across the globe. The 49ers pass defense is actually quite good. They're top five in opposing passer rating. The reason they give up yards is because running on them is so hopeless teams air it out much more than they would in most games. Also, they did beat Detroit and New York this year, which are pretty good passing teams. Granted they don't have Brees and Rodgers, but it still says something. New Orleans appears to be in place for the 3rd seed, which would mean if they won the wild card round they would travel to San Francisco. If they lost at the shithawks last year and lost to the rams this year you better believe the 49ers can beat them. They couldn't score on Baltimore, but they definitely can score on New Orleans.
Remember that if it weren't for one technically-correct-but-miniscule penalty, it would have been 13-6 49ers heading into the fourth. Smith was fine, but suffered from terrible pass protection. Ngata, Suggs, etc. stuck to him like a wet blanket all night, and there wasn't enough time for routes to develop downfield. People seriously underrate the effect that passer protection makes on performance. The team is extremely hard to score against. Fewest points allowed, no rushing touchdowns, second-most takeaways, and the lowest opponent-red-zone-efficiency of the past decade. They're good, but yeah, probably not one loss good. New England and New Orleans have lost to worse teams, and Green Bay has been seriously challenged by worse.